


open up a smile on another face

by aceofdiamonds



Series: is that such a stretch of the imagination? [11]
Category: Gossip Girl, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 16:52:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6087339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>dan babysits for the afternoon</p><p>But Teddy pffts dismissively. “I won’t get stuck,” and then, to prove a point, he shifts his nose into a little pink triangle, just like Smokey’s, his blue hair darkening to match her fur, and then changes back again before Dan can blink. “See.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	open up a smile on another face

**Author's Note:**

> it may be impossible to believe but i am in fact working on things that don’t revolve around this verse. it just doesn’t seem that way because honestly i love this verse more than a lot of things in my life at the moment. i don’t care how that sounds. also this doesn’t really feature blair or harry because i feel a lot of the focus is always on harry’s side only because i know him so much more because rereading hp doesn’t make me angry and sad the same way rewatching gossip girl does and i want to give blair and her side more of a voice. anyway, this is dan and teddy? title is from open happiness

 

  
  


Dan says yes when Blair asks if he can babysit Teddy, Harry’s godson, for an hour or so while they check out houses in both England and Manhattan because they’ve been married for three years and together for two more on top of that but they still haven’t decided where they want to live — whatever, Dan’s not getting involved. Anyway, Blair asks Dan to babysit because everyone else is busy and Dan says yes without really thinking about it because he helped look after Georgina’s baby and he’s spent time with a few since and so, yeah, he feels confident he can handle it.

He forgets when Harry drops Teddy off in Brooklyn that Teddy isn’t a baby, that he is in fact a nine year old child, and that they’re wildly different from babies. Dan should’ve studied before this. He can’t remember being nine.

Although, he doesn’t suppose his nine year old life would have many similarities to Teddy’s nine year old life given that he’s not a, part werewolf, b, part shapeshifter or something, c, a wizard, and d, British. He’s honestly not sure what the prevalent factor is here in shaping Teddy’s life. 

“Hey, Teddy,” he says when Harry leaves in a spin of harried thanks and promises to not be long. “You remember me, right? Dan.”

“I saw you last month,” Teddy points out, raising an eyebrow in an astonishingly Blair-like gesture. “Do you still have your cat?” 

After he and Serena broke up again, for the last time, yeah they mean it this time, Dan succumbed to his heart’s desires and got a cat. Well, actually, the cat found him, because that’s how it works for writers, alright? The cat had wandered into his life by way of screaming on the fire escape for three nights in a row and she hasn’t left much since. 

He finds her now, curled under the coffee table on a pile of books Dan’s been meaning to read, and he picks her up and hands her over to Teddy who returns her to the much preferable surface of the couch and sits down gently beside her. “Hi, Smokey.”

Blair had laughed at Dan, loudly, when she learned he had gotten a cat, and then she had laughed some more when she caught Dan calling her Smokey. 

“Fleur and Bill have a cat, too, you know,” Teddy says as he strokes over Smokey’s ears. “Gran won’t let me get one yet, she says she’s worried I might try and change my face to look like it too much and I’ll get stuck that way but I think that’s just an excuse.” 

Dan nods sombrely, his laugh hidden behind his teeth. “That’s a good excuse.”

But Teddy  _ pffts _ dismissively. “I won’t get  _ stuck _ ,” and then, to prove a point, he shifts his nose into a little pink triangle, just like Smokey’s, his blue hair darkening to match her fur, and then changes back again before Dan can blink. “See.” 

This time Dan does laugh. “Maybe you should ask your Gran again,” he says. “Or, you can ask Blair to come over and see Smokey when you need some cat in your life. Blair loves coming to Brooklyn.” 

“That’s not what she told me,” Teddy says, looking up at Dan and grinning, his eyes all crinkled and his teeth poking out. “Blair says even Knockturn Alley’s better than Brooklyn and Knockturn Alley’s  _ bad _ .”

It’s still so strange to hear these terms, terms that Blair now uses without a second thought, and be so unaware of what they mean. Harry’s shown Dan the little parts of wizarding New York that he can but — look — Dan’s always been a person very grounded in logic, various fantasies about princesses and runaway weddings aside, and he just can’t get his head around the fact that people can do magic, that this is all real, that there have been people walking around with the world at their fingertips and Dan’s been so oblivious to it all. 

Blair had told him once after too many glasses of wine and an argument with Harry that she still feels jealous of that world, that even though she’s so immersed in it now she’s never going to fully be a part of it. It’s almost uncomfortable for Dan to watch Blair yearn for something and have no means of ever reaching it. He had opened his mouth to say something about it but then she had downed the rest of her glass and went on to say that honestly, now she knows that there are wizards and witches out there who have the ability to virtually make the world bend to them, it’s even more admirable that Blair has achieved what she has with none of this extra help. That she’s proud that she’s reached where she is when there are witches and wizards out there who have these spells and potions to help them rise to where they need but here she is, still at the top of her game. Dan remembers feeling more settled at that, because still so much rests of Blair’s well being, and he had poured them both another glass of wine, echoing her achievements in a toast. 

Teddy’s straddling both of these worlds but he’s also straddling so many more within that. He has Harry as his godfather and he has his Gran and he has the Weasley family and then he has Blair and he has Blair’s family and he has Blair’s friends and he has so many people taking on these roles in his life, of loving him and caring for him and protecting him and Dan’s on the periphery but he can’t get his head around it all. 

So instead of trying, he gets a couple of cans of Coke from the fridge and grabs a bag of chips and joins Teddy on the couch, apologising to Smokey when he accidentally jostles her. She ends up seeking solace in Teddy’s lap which makes the kid grin so big his hair turns bright yellow.

“Will we put a DVD on while we wait for Harry and Blair, Teddy?” 

“Okay,” Teddy says, hands gentle on Smokey’s back where he’s cradling her as close to his body as she allows. “Do you have Star Wars? Harry and Blair let me watch A New Hope when I was staying with them last week and it was so cool! Have you seen it, Dan? There are these weird robot things that are kind of like house elves but not really and there’s a scary man in it with a mask and also there are space ships! Big space ships! And Han Solo is so cool. Blair says that Leia’s the best out of the lot for putting up with Han and Luke and Leia’s pretty cool I guess, her hair is funny, but I love Luke. Dan, guess what, Gran says I can maybe get a lightsaber for my birthday but I don’t know how that would work when I get my wand --” He loses steam here, a frown of confusion on his face as he weighs through the pros and cons of wand versus lightsaber and it’s all Dan can do to hand him the Cokes and then get up to look for the DVDs he hasn’t watched in years.

“Han Solo’s pretty cool,” Dan agrees, whooping triumphantly when he finds his box-set buried underneath a pile of DVDs he assumes are Jenny’s but could equally be Rufus’s. “And Luke and Leia are as well but Obi-Wan’s always been my favourite.” 

“Obi-Wan?” Teddy replies, nose scrunching in disagreement. “The old man?”

“Hey, old doesn’t equal bad.” 

“That’s true,” Teddy concedes with the air of someone much older. “Gran’s told me all about Albus Dumbledore -- he was very important to Harry and Mum and Dad and everyone else during the wars and he was the oldest person I’ve ever heard of.” 

Dan doesn’t have much to comment in this area due to lack of knowledge so he hums noncommittally and steers the conversation back to safer waters. “Right. So, Obi-Wan’s cool even though he's old -- have you seen any of the prequel trilogy?”

Teddy shakes his head, looks somewhere close to devastated. “No, I’ve only see A New Hope. Dan, can we watch the others? Can we watch them all?” 

“Let's start with Empire Strikes Back,” Dan says, sitting back down on the couch. 

“This is so cool,” Teddy declares five minutes into the movie, hugging Smokey close to his body. Dan exhales -- it feels like a success.

Blair and Harry return just as the movie is ending with the big reveal, the loss of Luke’s hand, and the capture of Han Solo. Teddy sits with wide eyes and his mouth open in dismay; his hand clutches too tight at Smokey’s fur and she leaves with a small meow. 

As Harry crouches next to Teddy and asks how he and Dan spent the afternoon Blair glares at Dan. 

“What? We just watched Star Wars.” 

“He's traumatised,” Blair says, gesturing towards the couch. “Look at him.” 

But when they turn Teddy is excitedly telling Harry all about the movie, all about Luke and Leia and Han and how he actually kind of missed Obi-Wan in this one. Dan resists sticking his tongue out at Blair. 

“Did you find a place?” 

Blair shakes her head as she watches Harry pick up Teddy. “We’ll look again soon. I’ve got half a dozen deadlines to meet and Harry’s got a match for the next few Saturdays so I don't know when we’ll fit it in but we’ll get there.”

“Well.” Dan sticks his hands in his pocket and shrugs. “Teddy can stay here if you want when you need to go.”

Blair looks at him, mouth curving into a smile. “He's great, isn't he?” 

“He's a good kid,” Dan agrees. “He likes you.” This was never said explicitly but Dan had picked it up through the various small mentions of Blair throughout the film, her comments and sometimes her mannerisms. It's a strange situation for both of them to be in, Teddy and Blair, tied to each other through Harry. From Dan’s outsider perspective, it seems to be working.

“All children seem to,” Blair replies, always on top of her game. And then she smiles at the way Teddy explaining something to Harry who listens earnestly and it's clear that this is something different. 

“Do you think you and Harry will ever --?” the obvious end of the question trailing off. 

Blair sighs, shrugs, doesn't give away her position. “Not right now -- we’re both too busy. But maybe one day,” and neither of them mention the baby Blair had been waiting to have before or the months following that brought them so close together. “Thanks for this afternoon, Dan.” 

“He’s a good kid,” he says again.

And Blair smiles, proud, and then leads the way over to Harry and Teddy. “Come on, then. Harry promised he’d make dinner this morning, didn’t he, Teddy?”

“He did,” Teddy agrees, nodding. He allows Harry to help him into his hoodie and then he does a quick scan of the room for Smokey who is no doubt out on her fire escape perch. “Thanks, Dan, I had fun.” He pauses -- frowns.  “Harry, when you defeated Voldemort did you have a lot of people’s help? Like Luke?”

“You know I did,” Harry says, voice gentle. This is the area that covers the death of Teddy’s parents, Dan knows. “You know everyone helped me.” 

Blair shoots a look at Dan who has never heard the full story but has always assumed Harry is something of a national hero on a level Dan could never understand. He keeps his mouth shut. 

“I was just thinking --” and then Teddy breaks off into a yawn. “How much you and Luke are the same.” 

“So who does that make Blair?” Harry laughs. 

“I’m not sure yet,” he says, leaning into Harry. “We’ll need to watch the rest of them to see.” 

Blair’s hand passes over his head, ruffling his hair in a way that makes him growl but move closer to her anyway. “Let’s go, then, I think we’ve got the rest somewhere at home.” 

And so they leave, the three parts of a strange little makeshift family with connections spread so wide, and Dan stands by the door to wave them away. 

“Tell Smokey bye from me!” Teddy calls over his shoulder, his hand encased in Harry’s. Blair glances back at Dan, smiles another thanks, and then she turns back around and slips her hand into Harry’s other hand. 


End file.
